There was a guest on Fresh Air that was talking about this recently: DAVIES: Now that there's more interest in electric cars, is there a concern that, you know

There was a guest on Fresh Air that was talking about this recently: DAVIES: Now that there's more interest in electric cars, is there a concern that, you know, the known lithium deposits will be inadequate for our needs in the future? Mr. FLETCHER: Not anytime soon. I - these things are hard to forecast 100 years out, of course, because nobody knows what's going to happen. But when I was at the Annual Lithium Supply and Markets Conference last January, an analyst got up and basically told all the miners in the audience that there was going to be such an enormous oversupply in the last half of this decade that only the strongest were going to survive. There are a lot of people getting into the lithium mining business right now, but there seems to be more than enough to go around. And so I haven't seen anybody express concern about lithium supplies for any foreseeable reasonable number of these cars, you know, in batteries. Of course, I'll just point out a misperception. A lot of people speak of lithium as if its oil. They talk about Bolivia or Chile being the Saudi Arabia of lithium. But you don't burn lithium. Lithium is a metal used to make a device that stores energy that's produced by other means. So it can be recycled. The batteries can be reused. There is plenty to go around for quite some time. http://www.npr.org/2011/06/08/136856479/leading-the-charge-to-make-better-electric-cars http://www.npr.org/2011/06/08/136856479/leading-the-charge-t...